Welcome to the Consumerist Archives

Thanks for visiting Consumerist.com. As of October 2017, Consumerist is no longer producing new content, but feel free to browse through our archives. Here you can find 12 years worth of articles on everything from how to avoid dodgy scams to writing an effective complaint letter. Check out some of our greatest hits below, explore the categories listed on the left-hand side of the page, or head to CR.org for ratings, reviews, and consumer news.

contests

Have you been craving sugary, candy-colored, magical food items since the Unicorn Frappuccino went away? General Mills has some good news: In a promotion, it will be giving away thousands of Lucky Charms boxes that contain only dehydrated marshmallows, fulfilling a fantasy that many people have had while intoxicated. But getting one of these rare boxes of cereal won’t be as special as it was the first time — and there are much easier ways to eat a bowl of hard, candy-colored marshmallows. [More]

If a pizza place is offering free food to people who can hike or bike their way up a snow-covered mountain, you have to ask yourself: Is the pizza really free? And if you’re one Arizona man who had to be rescued while trying to cash in on this promotion, you’re probably wondering: Why did I wear shorts? [More]

Back at the beginning of 2015, before it launched to the public, e-commerce site Jet used a contest to encourage people to refer others to the site. The winner was a Pennsylvania man who spent $18,000 on online ads, recruiting new Jet users through sites like Facebook and Swagbucks. He received 100,000 shares in the company, which he couldn’t cash in until the company went public or were sold. Today, the company announced that Walmart acquired it for $3.3 billion. [More]

In 1976, the Federal Communications Commission adopted the so-called “Contest Rule,” which sought to increase transparency in on-air contests by requiring that TV and radio broadcasters disclose the terms of the contest over the air. And even though there have been huge technological and cultural changes in the nearly 40 years since, allowing shows to also put their rules online, broadcasters must still explain them on air. That’s about to change. [More]

The Federal Trade Commission’s vendetta against robocalls continued today as the agency announced the winner of a contest – and $25,000 – for building an app that blocks and forwards the annoying calls. [More]

In the latest string of popular “create something, win huge reward” contests, a California woman is offering up her refurbished 1906 Craftsman home — valued at $390,000 — to the person who can come up with a winning dessert recipe. [More]

If there are two things we’ve discovered people really and truly go bonkers for, it’s writing competitions that reap rewards of property for the winner and goats performing jobs. Those two topics have come together in the story of an Alabama couple holding an essay-writing contest to decide who will win their fully functional, mortgage-free goat cheese farm — including its resident goat population of 85. [More]

Winning the chance to run through a toy store as a kid and grab anything and everything your heart could desire, Nickelodeon’s Super Toy Run was the epitome of luck, making the show’s winners the subject of intense envy back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. So what was it like to live the dream? [More]

If you’ve ever dreamed of owning your own country inn, tucked away somewhere in Maine with all that entails, you don’t need a huge bank account or a surprise inheritance from a distant relative to make that dream come true: The owner of a 210-year-old inn in Maine is offering up the place for just $125 — to the person who submits a winning essay. [More]

So you picked up a dozen tasty doughnuts for the office this morning; that probably made you feel like a pretty good co-worker, right? Well Krispy Kreme officially put your measly 12 toruses of delicious dough to shame, by delivering a single, gigantic box of 2,400 doughnuts to a public relations firm in the United Kingdom. [More]

What would you say if someone told you the rest of your meals for your entire life were covered? Great, right? But could you buy a “lifetime” of food for $10,000? Maybe at Taco Bell, as the chain’s new “Eleven Everlasting Dollars” contest claims each winner will win free Taco Bell food for life. [More]

This baseball season, Domino’s Pizza is running a promotion where fans can get a code for a free pizza after the first two no-hitters of the year. While many people were shut out of the code-generating website, reader Jim wasn’t one of them. He got a code. The problem is that he and Domino’s disagree about how calendars work, and now he has no free pizza. [More]

Companies want customers to engage with them online as if they’re just another pal on Facebook or Twitter, one that can offer downloadable coupons and promote contests with attractive prizes. But in new language recently added to General Mills’ website, consumers who interact with the company online will be agreeing to give up the right to sue the company in the future. [More]

A fundraiser event in Tampa was sort of a boozy raffle. Guests could pay $20 for a flute of champagne with a clear gemstone at the bottom. Everyone got to drink champagne, and one lucky guest won a diamond worth $5,000. The 80-year-old winner didn’t have to worry about finding a safe place to store the stone on her way home, because she had accidentally swallowed it. [More]

The Alamo Drafthouse chain of movie theaters has long had a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to texting and talking on the phone during a film, as commemorated in maybe the greatest anti-texting PSA ever. Now the company is asking you to unleash that annoyed auteur that’s dying to get out and tell people to shut the &*#( up. [More]

Do you have an overwhelming desire to meet the band members of One Direction? Me either. And if you’re male or 30 or older, you probably aren’t in the band’s main demographic anyway. But Victor questions a contest run by Seventeen magazine to meet the band members of One Direction that excludes all females ages 30 and over and all males. [More]

If you get something free under false pretenses, then the company contacts you to take away your prize, have you really lost anything at all? That existential question is brought to you by SiriusXM. Back during this year’s Super Bowl, the satellite radio monolith took part in a Chevy sweepstakes, giving away 375 one-year Internet subscriptions. That winners’ link and promo code circulated on deals sites and blogs a few weeks ago, and someone forgot to turn it off, meaning that a whole lot more than 375 winners used it to get free subscriptions. [More]